*** YOU HAVE DISABLED CSS; PLEASE RE-ENABLE THIS BEFORE CONTINUING ***

Grammar - On Using Passive Voice

by   Nicholas de Lioncourt on July 17 2021 02:03 zulu

NEVER USE PASSIVE VOICE!

Ignore that. Ignore the other rules, as well.

 

Disregard the gibbering of anyone promoting "the right way to write".

Within the species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, lives a regressive subclass of bryozoans named, "Grammar Prescriptivists".

 

Consider the questions:

 Of what validity a critic's admonishment that; in art, works composed using brushstrokes made from right to left result in demonstrably poor compositions?

 Should an artist defer to others' proclamations that, since Phthalo Blue and Titanium White are color choices favored by beginners, professional artists should not use them in their palettes?

 

An artist would disregard these sentiments as absurdities, declaring the manifest truth that art is a creative expression without constraint or guideline.

Grammar Prescriptivists are limited by the effects of an incurable congenital banality, which renders their minds incapable of understanding that writing (even online commentary) is also a creative expression, and not regulated according to the precision of contracts and theses.

 

Understand, reader: every Grammar Prescriptivist's thought is a variation of beige; and, no ignorance of linguistics is greater than that of the "Grammar NAZI".

Two facts of linguistics:

 Nothing written or spoken by a native of the language may be judged 'bad grammar'. Every known language, living and extinct, spoken and written, resulted from the accumulative 'bad grammar' of speakers over generations.

The venerated Latin language is not more than the execration of Proto-Indo-European; modern Italian, the desecration of Latin.

 The proscriptive rules of English grammar; "split infinitives" , "passive voice", "ending with a preposition" etc., must be ignored - even by students (any teacher still enforcing these blasphemies should be exiled from the vocation).

Further, the proscriptivist foundation of English Grammar is the ignorant arrogance of 19th-century Latin and Greek aficionados, who would have forced the same rules on Chinese if given the opportunity.

 

... thoughts as I transition to writing. LNDL

tags:

categories: platitudes | general | language | personal

:: commenting is not enabled for this article